1. Technical Field
The present invention relates in general to improved electronic commerce and in particular to a web vendor offering alternative product package offers. Still more particularly, the present invention relates to enabling a user, responsive to initially offering the user a package with a user selected product and a vendor selected additional product at a price discounted by a rate for purchase via a web site, a selectable option to receive an alternative package offer with the user selected product and an alternative additional product at a price discounted also discounted by a rate for purchase.
2. Description of the Related Art
Network environments, such as the Internet, provide the infrastructure for vendors to connect with customers all over the world. In particular, electronic commerce continues to expand as more and more vendors provide product offerings on-line and more and more customers are able to access the Internet.
Web vendors may organize “web storefronts” in many different ways. Many web vendors will have a main web page that represents the entry point to the store and organizes the available products into a searchable directory. A main web page may include promotions for certain items or advertisements for a sale on a selection of items.
Many web vendors will organize multiple selectable products on a single page and responsive to a user selection of one of the products, will then open a product specific web page. A product specific web page may show a more detailed description of the product with specifications, photos, customer reviews, and other information. In addition, a selectable button to add the product to a “shopping cart” or to purchase the product immediately may be offered on the product specific page.
One of the disadvantages of a web based storefront is that because products are typically described on product specific web pages, it is more difficult for a web vendor to offer the same types of deals to entice customers to purchase multiple products or groups of products as are provided in a physical store-front. In an effort to persuade customers to purchase more products or groupings of products, some web vendors have pre-specified a single pairing of products to be offered to customers at a discounted price and only show the paired product offering to the user when the user selects to access the product specific web page of one of the products in the pair.
The disadvantage of pre-specified pairings is that the offering is static and only allows for the user to select or reject the offer, but not to access other special offers with the first selected product and the discount. A user may already have the other item in the pair, may not want the other item in the pair, or may not find the discount sufficient to want to purchase the other product.
In view of the foregoing, it would be advantageous to provide a method, system, and program for triggering alternative product pair offerings and in particular for placing a selectable option on a web page to enable a user to select to trigger an alternative product package offering with an alternative product but a similar discount when a pre-specified pairing or other deal is already made by a web vendor.